Almost no one watches the NBA anymore, and Lakers star forward LeBron James thinks he knows why.
On Thursday, James offered an insight into the league’s declining ratings amid a flurry of opinion that the NBA’s regular season games have become too much like the three-point shooting fest at the NBA’s All-Star Game.
James seems to think there’s something to that idea.
“The last couple of years have not been a great All-Star Game,” James began.
“Listen, it’s a bigger conversation. It’s not just the All-Star Game. It’s our game in general. Our game, there’s a lot of f*ck*ing threes being shot. So it’s a bigger conversation than just the All-Star Game.
“I was not part of the committee. It’s different, but I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see when we get there. It’s different. Obviously, any time you make some type of change, there’s gonna be some [blowback]. I don’t know. I have my ideas of what could possibly work, but I’m not gonna do that. We gotta do something.”
Something must be done, indeed.
Ratings are down 25% across all of the NBA’s broadcast networks. While NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is fond of pointing to cord-cutting as the culprit of the precipitous ratings drop, people didn’t just cut the cord en masse this year.
James is likely correct that fans are tired of seeing players chuck multitudes of 30-foot shots at the rim with an extremely low likelihood of success. Another point of concern that has to be addressed more directly with James and other star players is load management.
The practice of resting star players by allowing them to sit out games to conserve energy for the postseason has created an enormous disincentive to watch or attend games. At the core of the problem, the NBA plays too many regular-season games. A seemingly easy solution would be to reduce the season from 82 to 72 games, removing much of the need for load management.
However, teams in small to mid-size markets, such as Oklahoma City, New Orleans, and others, would reduce their profit margins dramatically by losing ten games worth of tickets, parking, merchandising, and concessions. This would make those teams unprofitable, and the league may lose teams, something NBA executives would view as an unacceptable outcome.
However, as a starting point, the league might want to take away the three-point line.
